My working from home diary - Louis Delétraz

Charouz Racing System driver Louis Delétraz has been representing Haas in the Formula 1 Virtual Grand Prix series, helping raise money for charity, and streaming his skills live on Twitch – but what else is the Swiss F2 driver up to?

Here's his guest column, to show us what life is like on lockdown in Switzerland.

Housebound

So right now, I'm in Geneva, Switzerland, with my family – it's the best way to be able to spend the lockdown together. It’s quite tough for everyone and we’re lucky to be in the Swiss countryside with the great fresh air. We're allowed to go out, just not to the shops, which helps. We're used to having such a crazy life as racing drivers, but being with the family has its positives.

Staying fit

I train at home now that the gym is closed, so I do bodyweight exercise and then cardio outside – which we're allowed to do as long as we keep our distance from others. I'm doing as much as I can, and it's not difficult to keep the training right – it’s just different because we don’t have the same tools.

I have plenty of time to plan my training and take rest days because I'm not on a plane every two days, which helps. It's the same for the diet – I do allow myself quite a lot, to be honest, because I train a lot and I'm lucky that way, I don't gain weight.

I am careful with the food but at the same time, if there’s something I like, I'll eat it. Since it’s Easter I had quite a lot of Swiss chocolate and I will not stop that for anything! Until I am too unfit to drive the car I will keep eating chocolate…

Passing the time

When I am not training, sometimes it can be boring but I take part in a lot of Esports events on the simulator. I also keep in touch with my engineers at Charouz Racing System to get the latest info, and we can still share ideas on the season and what we thought about pre-season testing – even though it was not much.

I'm doing quite a lot of binge-watching when it comes to Netflix, which is something I didn't really do before.

Above all, I want to learn how to do a gymnastic backflip, and now is a good time to do it, I think. so I am starting that now. And maybe that can be a good celebration for me.

For the fans

I'd like to say that it’s not easy, we all miss racing, we all miss our normal life, and it's a tough situation for everyone – we all want to get back on track as fast as possible – but it looks like the countries are slowly opening back up.

If we all behave, keep our distance from each other and do what we can to keep safe, the spread slows down a lot – that’s the only way we’ll get back.

If we all keep doing a good job we’ll all be back soon and see each other out there.

Thank you, everyone, for the support,

Louis